A beautiful edition with over 50 illustrations by Arthur Rackham and other illustratorsAlong with Irving's companion piece Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow story is set in 1790 in the countryside near the former Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, in a secluded glen known as Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod Crane is the teacher in a little village called Sleepy Hollow. He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals' stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Until late one night, he finds that maybe they're not just stories. However, things become a little too real for Ichabod when that very ghost appears one night and chases him. Why is the horseman after Ichabod and will he escape?Rip Van Winkle follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their strong liquor and falls deeply asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution.